THE P RTAL
July 2015
Page 11
Thoughts on Newman
The Prayer of
Humble Access
While attending mass according to the Ordinariate Rite,
Dr Stephen Morgan was struck by this beautiful prayer
Ihave to
begin this article with a little confession: I am something of a liturgical anorak. It’s a relatively
harmless pastime but like those original anoraks, the train spotters, I am interested in, fascinated with and
just very occasionally obsessed by different types of ritual, different liturgical expressions.
I have, in my time, stood through three hour
celebrations of Matins in the Byzantine Rite, kept vigil
with the Copts on Good Friday, served as sub-deacon
and chanted the Epistle in Arabic at a Greek-Melkite
Mass and, on a recent visit to the United States,
assisted at the first Mass of a young Dominican priest,
using the special rite that the Dominicans have of the
Extraordinary Form – where, after the consecration,
the priest holds his arms out horizontally so that,
strikingly, he has the form of the corpus, the body
of Christ on the cross. But recently, on one of these
occasions, I heard something that really caught my
attention.
I think that that is a prayer that says almost everything
we might want to say about the Eucharist in the liturgy
itself. I think it says all we might want to say about
why the Eucharist is both the source and summit of
the Christian life: the fountainhead from which all our
graces flow and towards which all our cooperation with
those graces leads us. It is an almost perfect expression
of what mercy means in the Christian life and to what
end our whole lives are directed.
Yes, engaged in theological speculation or
controversy, we might want to remind ourselves that
the Mass is first and foremost a sacrifice, and only
because it is a sacrifice is it a meal. We might want
I was at Mass celebrated according to the Ordinariate to remember that what happens at Mass is a ritual,
Use when I heard, for the first time in many years, that bloodless, representation of Calvary.
gem of the Book of Common Prayer, the “Prayer of
Of course, we need to remember that, in the
Humble Access”. As I listened to its sublime cadences
the other week, I was struck by its beauty, its theological Blessed Sacrament, Christ is really, truly and
depth and its appropriateness as we approach the Year substantially present, in a manner most aptly called
of Mercy so fortuitously proclaimed by our beloved transubstantiation, even if nature’s powers are baffled
and we see and taste but bread and wine knowing
Holy Father, Pope Francis.
the while that what we consume is the crucified,
what mercy means in the Christian life risen, ascended and glorified humanity of Christ.
Most of the prayers in the Church of England’s Yes, of course all these things are very important, not
Book of Common Prayer were translations – brilliant least because they are true, but, most powerfully, the
translations – of the Latin Prayers of the pre- Prayer of Humble Access reminds us of the intimate,
Reformation liturgies in England, but this prayer was merciful, reconciling purpose of God’s love for us in
a new composition, drawing on Sacred Scripture and the Eucharist.
the theology of St Augustine of Hippo and St Thomas
Aquinas.
This liturgical anorak, for one, knows that he
received a great grace as he heard those words of
In view of the controversy at the Reformation about Thomas Cranmer, prayed by a congregation now in
what happened at Mass and about what the Eucharist communion with the See of Peter, and suspects that he
was, the prayer has about it a directness that might now has a better idea of what Benedict XVI, that most
surprise us and remind us that religious differences are gentle, generous and wise Pope, meant when he spoke
often rather more ambiguous and complicated than of an Anglican Patrimony that could genuinely enrich
we usually think.
the whole Catholic Church.
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